6 Points to Check on a Digital Piano Before Buying it Used

You have a good feeling about a digital piano sold by an individual and you’ve decided to go try it with a view to buying it? Here are the 6 tests we advise you to do before discussing price and proceeding with the purchase.

1 - Try All the Keys! (Yes, All of Them!)

On a standard-size keyboard of 88 keys, if one key is defective among the 8 lowest or 11 highest (counting black keys in both cases), this is certainly annoying, but concretely it won’t bother you that much, unless you plan to play pieces from the high-level classical repertoire. If you’re a beginner, your budget is limited, here’s the opportunity to negotiate the price down a lot. On the other hand, if a key is defective in the center of the piano, don’t buy it! For your information, for a simple repair of a digital piano, you need to count 100, even 150€ minimum. And often there’s a fairly long delay.

If the piano you’re testing has a keyboard of 76 keys or less, and one key is defective, don’t buy it!

2- Try All the Buttons

Sometimes when there are many, some buttons are less useful than others. Of course, it’s preferable that they all work. If the defective button manages one of the main functions, if the instrument is inexpensive, repairing this button would probably be more expensive than the instrument’s price itself. We advise you to move on in this case.

3- Test the Headphone Jack

If you buy a digital piano it’s also to enjoy this very useful advantage when you live in an apartment or community which is to play with headphones on your ears. A defective headphone jack causing sound problems in the headphones like crackling or sizzling sounds due to poor contacts is a real inconvenience… If the headphone jack is defective or out of service, we advise you to think carefully about your use of headphones or not. Repairing the headphone jack should cost at least 100€.

4- Test if the Power Supply Doesn’t Have Poor Contact

For this you need to unplug the piano, remove the power cable, put it back then plug in the piano and turn it back on. Power supply poor contact problems are one of the first defects that appear when digital pianos age. Nothing more frustrating than the sound cutting out when you’re in the middle of a piece because the instrument turned off!

5- Check the Color of Keys, on Top and Between Them!

If the keys are yellowed, or black on the sides between each other, this means there’s a good chance the keyboard wasn’t protected from cigarette smoke. Potentially, smoke could have deposited dust in the piano. For us this justifies lowering the price. Note that some key plastics also yellow due to sunlight…

6- Test Volume at Maximum!

If the piano has its own amplification system, testing it with volume at maximum will allow you to verify that the speakers are in good condition. If the piano must use an external amplification system, it will be a way to test the jacks and connections for sound.

Conclusion

We hope these few tips will be useful to you. Buying a piano is always a pleasure, might as well protect yourself as much as possible from any disappointment.

See you soon on Tokatab, and at the service of your learning and musical pleasure!